Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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'Dr.' Rove issues HRC diagnosis

When did Karl Rove get his medical degree?

Oh, he didn’t? He sure could have fooled me, given that the man aka “Bush’s Brain” has speculated aloud that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has suffered a serious brain injury.

Rove made that speculation a few days ago when he wondered why Clinton — a possible, if not probable candidate for president in 2016 — was wearing eyeglasses after taking a fall in 2012.

He said something about Clinton spending a month in the hospital and then reappearing with the specs, which he said suggests she suffered a brain injury when she took the spill.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-analysis-karl-rove-hillary-clinton-whisper-campaign-internet-20140513-story.html

Rove is engaging in a cheap and ghastly form of smear.

Clinton didn’t spend a month in the hospital; she spent four days. She wore the glasses to correct a bout of double vision she was having as a result of the fall she took.

Rove knows Clinton is considering a run for president. He also knows that she’s cleaning the clocks of any possible Republican contender, according to recent reputable polling data. Rove also understands the value of plant negative thoughts in the minds of voters who might be undecided about who to support for president two years from now.

He’s found a tantalizing opportunity in raising these questions, which seem to be specious at best and malicious at worst.

I’ll stick with White House press secretary Jay Carney’s response to “Dr.” Rove’s diagnosis. Carney said when asked about Rove’s assessment that Rove was the “last person in the country” to accept that President Obama had been re-elected in 2012. You’ll recall his outburst when his Fox News Channel colleagues called Ohio as going for the president when only a few votes had been posted. Why, he just couldn’t believe it. So, the Fox news anchors went to the network’s computer gurus’ headquarters off camera to confirm that they had called it correctly.

Rove is a talented Republican political strategist who helped elect and re-elect George W. Bush president of the United States. He’s also a fierce partisan who is letting his GOP loyalty get in the way of whatever common sense he’s got left.

Everyone gets that presidential candidates are fair game. We need to know if they’re physically able to do the world’s most difficult job. Speculating, though, on matters about which Karl Rove knows nothing is simply shameful.

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Romney switches course on minimum wage

Do you recall the 2004 presidential campaign political ad that lampooned Democratic nominee U.S. Sen John Kerry for saying he was “in favor of the Iraq War before I opposed it”?

Well, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney once opposed increasing the minimum wage but now he favors it.

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/romney-on-minimum-wage-raise-it-251118147687

Romney spoke correctly on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” broadcast this morning by saying Republicans should be the party of more and better-paying jobs. He reminded his hosts that he parted company with the conservative wing of his party by favoring an increase in the minimum wage.

Indeed, Romney now is aboard the same wagon with a majority of Americans who favor increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.

His Republican colleagues in Congress need to listen to the party’s most recent presidential nominee who, let’s not forget, received nearly 61 million votes in the 2012 election.

To their discredit, though, congressional Republicans are listening instead to tea party conservatives who don’t want to lift minimum-wage earners who have to support their families out of poverty.

And hasn’t President Obama been saying that no family relying on the minimum wage should live in poverty? Strangely, Mitt Romney’s stance put him squarely in the same corner with the man who defeated him in the 2012 election.

Don’t wait for Romney to extol the president’s correctness on the minimum wage issue. That would go beyond the pale.

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'R-word' surfaces yet again

There goes that pesky “R-word” being bandied about as politicians debate the presidency of Barack Obama.

The latest uttering of it came from former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who used to be a Republican but now is running for his old office — as a Democrat.

Why did he leave the Grand Old Party?

Crist says it is because too many Republicans just can’t stomach the idea of an African-American serving as president of the United States. He calls those critics racist.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/charlie-crist-racism-drove-me-from-gop-106442.html?hp=l10_b1

Is it true? Is Crist correct to assert that GOP criticism of Obama is based mostly — if not solely — on the fact that his father was a black African and his mother was a white Kansan?

Crist leveled a pretty heavy barrage against his former party in a TV interview. “They’re perceived now as being anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-gay, anti-education, anti-environment,” he said of Republicans.

Crist told interviewer Jorge Ramos he couldn’t tolerate that kind of view. So he switched parties.

Republicans, not surprisingly, say Crist left the party to become an independent initially because he couldn’t beat GOP Sen. Marco Rubio in the 2010 election. Again, I cannot know someone’s motives.

Crist, though, is speaking aloud about a chronic, nagging problem that is dogging the Republican Party. Are Obama critics fueled by racism? At the very least, is the president’s racial background factoring at some level into the intensity of the criticism being leveled at him?

I haven’t a clue. The issue, though, is worth a thorough national discussion.

Bring it on.

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Democratic U.S. Senate runoff on tap

David Alameel is running against Keesha Rogers in the May 27 primary runoff for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

I’ll admit that this one has gotten past me.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/05/05/democrats-rally-around-alameel-sideline-obama-crit/

It appears Democrats actually could nominate a wacky pretender to run this fall against Republican Sen. John Cornyn.

Let’s hope it doesn’t happen.

The wack job happens to be Rogers, who finished with 22 percent of the primary vote in March, enough to deny Alameel the outright majority needed to be nominated to run against Cornyn.

“There must be people who don’t know what she stands for,” Alameel told the Texas Tribune.

And she stands for? Well, she wants President Obama to be impeached. That’s right, a Democrat is calling for the impeachment of a fellow Democrat, the guy in the White House, the 44th president of the United States.

Rogers reportedly makes the point about impeachment at the rare public appearances she makes as she, um, campaigns for the Senate.

Alameel was supposed to win the Democratic primary outright. He has the backing of the party apparatus. He has been endorsed by the Democratic nominee for governor, Wendy Davis. He is independently wealthy and is ready to spend a lot of his own money to get elected.

First, though, he has to fight off a goofball candidate for his party’s nomination.

Rogers suggested recently that the president is a closet Republican. That’s right. He’s one of them.

“Obama is right in line with the Republicans as he’s supporting Wall Street financial interests, as he’s supporting this drive toward thermonuclear war, and as he’s destroying the physical economy of this nation,” Rogers said in a Houston speech, according to the Tribune.

Earth to Rogers: The economy is improving; and thermonuclear war isn’t on anyone’s horizon except your own.

Rogers’s surprising success just might say something about the still-dismal state of the Texas Democratic Party. Yes, Democrats are nominally hopeful that Davis might be able to upset Republican nominee Greg Abbott in the governor’s race; they also have hopes for Leticia Van de Putte’s chances in the race for lieutenant governor.

But boy, howdy. If they nominate someone like Keesha Rogers to run against John Cornyn, well, the party’s in more trouble than many of us ever imagined.

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Benghazi explodes once again

The Sunday news talk shows were all over the Benghazi story this past weekend.

Big surprise, huh?

I didn’t catch all of them, but I did see what I think was one of the better debates on the subject. It occurred on ABC’s “This Week” segment and featured some fiery partisans on both sides arguing their respective cases over what the Obama administration knew about the September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/05/04/this_week_roundtable_heated_benghazi_investigation_debate.html

It’s pretty good stuff.

Former GOP U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum and radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham argued for the right wing’s version of the story, which is that the White House and/or the State Department knew in advance that the attack on the compound was a terrorist deed and did little or nothing to protect the people inside. Former Obama campaign guru and senior policy wonk David Plouffe and former Obama administration adviser Van Jones argued the opposite view, which is that the administration erred in issuing its initial talking points, but didn’t conspire to keep the truth from the public.

ABC News correspondent Cokie Roberts also was present and while she tended to favor the Plouffe-Jones view, she sought to bring some balance to the discussion.

The U.S. House of Representatives is going to convene a special committee to determine whether the administration deceived the public on purpose. It’ll be led by a tea party guy, Rep. Trey Gowdy, who no doubt has an agenda of his own. He said something over the weekend about having “evidence” of a cover-up. Congressional Democrats are weighing the possibility of sitting this one out, letting Republicans make fools of themselves.

The debate Sunday was lively and often angry — and it provided an apt metaphor for the tone of debate in Washington regarding the Benghazi attack. Republicans want to keep hammering at an old story. Democrats want to refocus on some other things, such as, oh, the improving economy. Neither side is willing to give the other side any leeway.

The talkers on “This Week” followed that script to the letter.

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Some critics are unfair, but not all of them

Peter Beinert, writing for Atlantic Monthly, makes a fascinating case in defense of those who are highly critical of President Obama.

Yes, some of the criticism is race-based … but not all of it, not by a long shot. The article attached here is worth reading.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/radical-republican-opposition-is-not-new/361536/

He takes U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson to task for making some outrageous claims about how Barack Obama has been singled out merely because of his race. Here’s what Beinert writes: “I never saw George Bush treated like this. I never saw Bill Clinton treated like this with such disrespect,” Thompson told a radio show. “That Mitch McConnell would have the audacity to tell the president of the United States … that ‘I don’t care what you come up with we’re going to be against it.’ Now if that’s not a racist statement I don’t know what is.”

Beinert notes that Thompson then said that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas doesn’t like being black, which on its face is a preposterous notion.

Obama’s critics have been harsh. Have they been any more strident than those who went after, say, Preident Bill Clinton? Hardly.

Beinert makes some interesting comparisons between the two presidents’ critics. My all-time “favorite” criticism of Bill Clinton came from the late preacher Jerry Falwell, who sponsored a video called “The Clinton Chronicles” that suggested — no, it actually accused — that Bill and Hillary Clinton orchestrated the murder of long-time friend and adviser Vince Foster, who committed suicide early in the Clinton presidency.

Let’s also point out here that Beinert is a left-leaning journalist who generally is friendly toward policies advocated by progressive politicians.

He is right to calm down those who suggest things such as those brought forward by Rep. Thompson that all criticism of President Obama is race-based and is uniquely harsh.

Bill Clinton surely would disagree.

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Vise tightens around Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin may be an atypical world leader, coming as he does from a world of spooks.

He does, however, hang with people with lots of money — which doesn’t make him much different from other heads of state and/or government.

Thus, the increased sanctions announced today by President Obama just might persuade the Russian leader to end his effort to foment unrest in Ukraine.

http://time.com/79080/russia-ukraine-putin-obama-sanctions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fswampland+%28TIME%3A+Swampland%29

The White House announced that it is implementing further economic hardship on individuals and companies close to Putin. Obama called it a “calibrated effort” designed to inform Putin of the folly of his continued presence in Ukraine’s sovereign affairs.

The sanctions already announced have had an impact. The Russian ruble’s value has plummeted, along with the Russian stock exchange. Russian investments have tanked.

Have the efforts persuaded Putin to back off? No. They have, however, persuaded the Russians to seek a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis, which exploded several months ago with the ouster of Ukraine’s pro-Russia president and the subsequent annexation of Crimea into Russia.

We’ve seen a lot of blustering among Russians, Americans, NATO and the European Union. No one should really believe all-out war is going to erupt, despite claims by both sides that the other guys want to start a shooting war.

“The goal here is not to go after Mr. Putin, personally,” Obama said. “The goal is to change his calculus with respect to how the current actions that he’s engaging in in Ukraine could have an adverse impact on the Russian economy over the long haul.”

Actually, Mr. President, the goal seems to be to go after Putin “personally,” which is OK with me and I am guessing a lot of other Americans.

Make him squirm.

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Liar, liar …

Let’s talk briefly one more time about lies and lying.

President Obama’s critics accuse him of “lying” about the Affordable Care Act, specifically about the pledge he made that Americans can “keep their doctor if they so wish.” It turns out, with the unveiling of the ACA, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Republicans jumped all over Obama for “lying” to Americans.

The dictionary defines “lying” as the intentional telling of an untruth. To suggest someone is lying is to know beyond a doubt the person made a statement knowing it is untrue.

Did the president knowingly assert the “keep-your-doctor” pledge knowing it wasn’t necessarily true? I don’t know, and neither do his critics.

I also need to revisit one more time the so-called “lies” President Bush told us about whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The president used WMD as a reason for going to war.

We invaded Iraq in March 2003, looked high and low for those WMD. We found none.

Intelligence analysts all over the world said Saddam had the WMD. Secretary of State Colin Powell said so in a statement to the United Nations. Were they lying? Did they purposely tell a falsehood? I don’t know that any more than I know that Barack Obama “lied” about the ACA.

I just have grown weary of the casual use of this particular “L” word.

How about cooling it until someone can produce incontrovertible proof that he or she is a true-blue mind reader?

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Is race a factor?

Leonard Pitts Jr. poses an interesting question to President Obama’s critics who contend their criticism ha nothing to do with his race.

What would the criticism look like if race was a factor?

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/apr/21/leonard-pitts-jr-what-would-it-look-like/

Pitts, of course, is African-American, just like the president. So, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist is likely to be more sensitive to specific elements of the criticism that has been leveled at Obama since he took office in January 2009.

I have many friends and acquaintances who tell me time and again that race has nothing to do with their dislike of the 44th president of the United States. However, here is what Pitts wrote in a recent column:

“I mean, we’re talking about a president who was called ‘uppity’ by one GOP lawmaker, ‘boy’ by another and ‘subhuman’ by a GOP activist, who was depicted as a bone-through-the-nose witch doctor by opponents of his health care reform bill, as a pair of cartoon spook eyes against a black backdrop by an aide to a GOP lawmaker and as an ape by various opponents, who has been dogged by a ‘tea party’ movement whose earliest and most enthusiastic supporters included the Council of Conservative Citizens, infamous for declaring the children of interracial unions ‘a slimy brown glop’; who was called a liar by an obscure GOP lawmaker during a speech before a joint session of Congress; and who has had to contend with a yearslong campaign of people pretending there is some mystery about where he was born.”

Interesting, don’t you think?

No other prominent politician in my memory ever has been called such things by his or her foes. It’s the tone, the intensity of which defies reason.

Those who dislike the president can hide behind their policy differences, they can say all they want that race doesn’t matter to them one little bit.

I try like the dickens to accept what they say and accept that they simply disagree with his policies. To be clear, none of my friends ever has used the language that Pitts cites in his column. However, he is spot on to call attention to these statements that have been whispered and shouted at the same time.

Is race a factor in this intense loathing of the president? I have to say “yes.”

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Phone call symbolizes enmity

A simple phone call, that’s all it was supposed to be.

But now, as Politico.com has noted, the two principals in that conversation cannot even agree on its nature.

President Obama blistered congressional Republicans over their refusal to enact comprehensive immigration reform; then he telephoned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va. Did the two men talk about immigration reform or did they, as the White House said, exchange pleasantries as the president wished Cantor, who is Jewish, a happy Passover?

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/immigration-barack-obama-eric-cantor-105764.html?hp=f2

Cantor responded to Obama’s attack with one of his own.

To be honest, I’m wishing a plague on both sides of this matter.

I’m also believing Cantor is right that the president and his team still haven’t learned how to work with the very people they need to enact their agenda, namely the members of Congress who happen to be from the other party.

It’s fair, however, to wonder whether the president simply has run out of patience with the loyal opposition.

The testy exchange went like this, according to Politico.com:

“The president called me hours after he issued a partisan statement which attacked me and my fellow House Republicans and which indicated no sincere desire to work together,” Cantor said in a statement. “After five years, President Obama still has not learned how to effectively work with Congress to get things done. You do not attack the very people you hope to engage in a serious dialogue,” he continued.

The president had said this earlier:

“Unfortunately, Republicans in the House of Representatives have repeatedly failed to take action, seemingly preferring the status quo of a broken immigration system over meaningful reform. Instead of advancing common-sense reform and working to fix our immigration system, House Republicans have voted in favor of extreme measures like a punitive amendment to strip protections from ‘Dreamers.'”

Both sides keep talking past each other, even as they insist it’s time to start working together.

There isn’t a Lyndon Johnson or Everett Dirksen among any of them.